San Antonio - Brittney Griner returned to the United States early Friday, 10 months after the basketball star’s detention in Russia for carrying cannabis oil. Griner’s case became one where the most high-profile American was jailed abroad and set off a political firestorm.
The deal that saw Griner exchanged for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, the Russian felon once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death,” achieved a top goal for President Joe Biden. But the U.S. failed to win freedom for another American, Paul Whelan, who has been jailed for nearly four years.
Asked if more such swaps could happen, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that “everything is possible,” noting that “compromises have been found” to clear the way for Thursday’s exchange.
Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and Phoenix Mercury pro basketball star, got off a plane that landed Friday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.
The WNBA star, who also played pro basketball in Russia, was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport in February after Russian authorities said she was carrying vape canisters with cannabis oil. The U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected.
She acknowledged in court that she possessed canisters with cannabis oil but said she had no criminal intent and accidentally packed them. Her defense team presented written statements that she had been prescribed cannabis to treat pain.
In releasing Bout, the U.S. freed a former Soviet Army lieutenant colonel whom the Justice Department once described as one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers. He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and extradited to the U.S. in 2010.
Bout was serving a 25-year sentence on charges that he conspired to sell tens of millions of dollars in weapons that U.S officials said were to be used against Americans.
In an exclusive interview with RT, Russian businessman Viktor Bout said he does not believe he is of any particular value to the Russian government.
He said there are “probably thousands and thousands and thousands” of cases like his in Russian history, and that he was merely caught up in the gears of geopolitics. Bout was commenting on claims in Western media that his release was of particular importance to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
-BBC/AP/RT